


At Long Last

by bakedgoldfish



Category: The West Wing
Genre: M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-02-15
Updated: 2003-02-15
Packaged: 2019-05-15 04:48:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14783853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bakedgoldfish/pseuds/bakedgoldfish
Summary: "My heart was wrapped up in clover/The night I looked at you."





	At Long Last

**Author's Note:**

> A copy of this work was once archived at National Library, a part of the [ West Wing Fanfiction Central](https://fanlore.org/wiki/West_Wing_Fanfiction_Central), a West Wing fanfiction archive. More information about the Open Doors approved archive move can be found in the [announcement post](http://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/8325).

**At Long Last**

**by:** Baked Goldfish 

**Category:** Zoey, Charlie/Zoey  
**Rating:** CHILD  
**Spoilers:** Posse Comitatus  
**Summary:** "My heart was wrapped up in clover/The night I looked at you."  
**Disclaimer:** I don't even pretend to own them.  Please don't sue me.  Etta James sang "At Last (My Love Has Come Home)".  At least, I think that's what it was called.  Zoey Bartlet, Charlie Young, Jed Bartlet, and the entire Bartlet White House are the property of... someone else who is not me.  Again, please don't sue me.  


He's got this deep, rumbling laugh when he thinks something is supremely funny. 

And that wonderful smile, too.  It's so brilliant, it's almost blinding. 

I told him that one time.  He smirked and handed me a pair of sunshades.  He's got the strangest sense of humor sometimes.  But, hey.  What can I say.  I love it. 

I love him. 

I wonder sometimes, if this is how Mom and Dad were when they were young.  My Dad's a big goofball, and my Mom's the one with the dry sarcastic wit.  Charlie and me, we're just the opposite.  He's the sardonic one, I'm the dweeb. 

It works.  Somehow, it works. 

I've learned not to question it.  I just like it.  People say we're so young, we're in love with being in love.  I don't think that's true.  I don't think my Dad would have let it go on this long if that were the case.  He once said something about building a dungeon.  I don't know.  My Dad's a goof.  He really is. 

When I was younger, Uncle Leo used to call me 'Little Jed'.  Mom picked it up, and whenever I do something silly, she calls me it.  Charlie's never called me that; I think he just feels uncomfortable saying my Dad's first name. 

But he does call me Ms. President.  I slap him on the arm whenever he says that.  But then I smile, so he knows he can say it again. 

I know, I'm bad.  But there's just something about him... I've never met anyone like him before.  I mean, sure, there were other guys before him.  Nice guys, too.  But nobody who's made me feel like this before.  He's a first. 

There was this one guy, back in junior high, who came close.  But then, it was junior high.  Now I'm in college, and it's different.  I know more.  I've had more experience, and I've figured some things out.  Not everything, mind you; but some things. 

I'm in college.  Charlie's going to go too after he puts Deena through school.  See, that's one of the things I love about him, he puts everyone else first.  Sometimes, I have to remind him that he needs to do things for his own pleasure. 

The first time I told him that, he looked at me, confused, and said that the things he did, they gave him pleasure to do.  He's that kind of person.  He's just so giving, sometimes I just can't believe it.  It's hard to believe that, in this day and age, anyone could be that giving and caring about other human beings.  He's not in this for any personal gain, he just wants to take care of his little sister.  Can you even believe that? 

I guess I've been calloused by being in a political family.  I mean, sure, I know honest politicians.  Dad, Uncle Leo, Toby, CJ, Josh, Sam, Ainsley, Lionel, even John Hoynes to an extent.  Yeah, he's Machiavellan, but at least he doesn't try to hide that.  He's a politician's politician, and he and everyone else knows it.  But there are so many other politicians out there who aren't like them.  I've met them, and I've grown up with them trying to force some issue down my Dad's throat; it's made me have that false belief that everyone in this world is in it for themselves. 

I know that's not true.  I've always known that's not true.  I just have to look at all the pictures of Dad and Uncle Leo from when I was growing up, and the pictures of them from before that, and I know that there have always been honest people in power.  And then I look at Sam and Josh, and I know that there always will be.  But, until I met Charlie, there was always this voice in the back of my head telling me that it isn't so.  Telling me that most everyone's a self-serving cutthroat. 

That voice isn't there anymore. 

He's a thrill.  It's like that Etta James song, you know the one.  It wasn't love at first sight, you know; it was love at first smile. 

He smiled.  He smiled.  And then the spell was cast. 

-end- 


End file.
